Truce called in Vegas drag war

Drag show host Frank Marino has long used a line about gays in the military: "We may not win any wars, but the parades will be fabulous."

Now it sounds like drag shows could be the model for world peace: Trash talk all you want. Keep the catty crossfire going as long as it's still fun. But when words give way to action, forgive, forget and do what needs to be done.

I say this because the planned July 13 reopening of the "La Cage" revue at the Four Queens required some Gaza Strip-level diplomacy. It revives a competition that seemed to be over in late 2009, when former "La Cage" star Marino opened "Divas Las Vegas" at the Imperial Palace.

The new venture puts longtime second-banana and "La Cage" MVP Jimmy Emerson into the spotlight as host and co-producer. This is reason enough to stir up a rivalry with Marino, but Emerson says he's not interested.

"We've kind of done all that," he says. "We were pitted against each other for years. We had a long talk about all this. ... We want everyone to work."

Marino agrees. "I took as many people as I could when I opened my show. Hopefully he will employ the rest."

The next big surprise is the "La Cage" name itself. Emerson toured with the title "Un-Boy-Lievable," because producer Norbert Aleman controls the "La Cage" name. And Emerson didn't hold back his bitterness in print when "La Cage" closed with no warning or severance pay in February 2009.

But Aleman let Emerson use the "La Cage" name last year in Palm Springs, Calif. "I felt betrayed after I put in 24 years," Emerson says now. "But after I cooled off, I realized he had no choice (but to close the show).

"We were all mad at each other, but I guess what we were really mad at was the economy."

Aleman must have "moved on, too," Emerson says, because "he has really stepped up" in a limited licensing agreement and access to old costumes.

Emerson says he doesn't plan to overplay his star billing, but will savor the spotlight. "I've always played second banana to these people, and I was fine," he says of some 30 years as "the big guy with the boobs," aka Tammy Spraynet, a big-haired country singer he came up with on the Texas club scene in the 1980s.

He's proven himself to be a natural comedian filling in for Marino as host and admits he feels at least a wee bit entitled to try his own show even when another is better established. In this day and age, "It's not the drag factor" that draws customers, he says. "It's the quality-show factor. And goddammit, I'm funny."

Indeed, one could argue Emerson is the instinctive comedian, while Marino's knack for promoting his show surpasses his stand-up comedy skills. But that would be stoking the fires to violate an already fragile truce.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.